The Potions Master and the Muggle Child
by Gryngolet
Summary: Professor Snape comes across an intruder in the school. Another attempt by me to warm-and-fuzzy up Snape by making him show kindness to a child. No discipline in this story.


There was that sound again. It sounded like someone crying. Severus Snape was quite familiar with the sound of crying, as it was a rare week when he didn't reduce more than one of his first years to tears. Tears were not uncommon even in his 2nd and 3rd year classes, and not unknown either in his 4th or 5th year classes, though the students who managed to make it into his N.E.W.T. level classes were usually mature and competent enough to maintain their composure even it the face of his withering criticism. This crying sounded muffled, though, and it was too late for any student to be out of bed and hiding in this corridor. He supposed it could be Moaning Myrtle, though he was on the opposite side of the castle from her toilet. He compressed his mouth into a thin line. If this was a student, he or she was going to have a very good reason for tears when Snape was done with him or her.

He'd been walking as usual without a light during his evening patrol. His night vision was excellent, and he knew these corridors, after 14 years as a teacher and his seven previous years as a student with a penchant for exploration, as well as he knew layout of his childhood home. Now he lit his wand with a quiet "_Lumos_!" He did not, of course, need to speak the incantation, though unvoiced magic took marginally more energy. Mainly he wanted to give the culprit a warning, along with the light, so that whoever it was could pull themselves together a bit before he had to deal with them.

He disliked dealing with crying children, though he caused it often enough. He liked their fear, or rather he liked jolting the complacent or cheeky ones into a good healthy fear of him, but he found the emotionality of tears distasteful. His mastery of the art of occlumency over the years had made him adept at clamping down on his own emotions, though there were certain situations and people, such as the Potter boy, who had the power to ruffle his hard-won composure. He also found it difficult to maintain the student-teacher distance he preferred when he was faced with a distraught student in need of comfort. Well, if the student was hurt he could bring it to Poppy, and if it was just sad or frightened he would dock its house for being out of bounds and then send it along to a house prefect or the right head of house. And god help the Slytherin who caused him to have to dock points from his own house. Hopefully it wasn't a homesick Slytherin firstie; he trusted neither Malfoy or Parkinson, the only prefects of his house who had not gone home for the Christmas holidays, to deal sympathetically with an unhappy child, which would leave the unwanted duty to him.

There was a clatter and a small figure darted out from where it had been crouching behind a suit of armor. It was a girl in muggle clothing, blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt, who ran shrieking away from him as if he were a ghost. He sighed. "_Impedimento_!" This child was too small to be a student, probably 7 or 8. The muggle clothes meant one of two things: either this was a lost muggle who had been exploring the ruined castle that Hogwarts appeared to be to all muggles, though the charms around the school should have kept all but the most determined muggle away. Or this was a stowaway, a younger sister who had run away to follow an older sibling to school. It wasn't unheard of.

The girl stumbled and fell as she lost the power to move her feet, and she landed sprawled on the stone floor, scraping her palms and bloodying her nose. She turned, trying to get her hexed feet under her, and began to scream as she saw him advancing on her. The noise brought the headache he'd been fighting since Longbottom had filled his classroom with orange smoke during second period back to life. "_Silencio_!" The noise cut off abruptly, though the child continued to scream silently and scrabble backwards away from him, dragging her useless legs until she had backed into the wall.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded, not bothering to lift the silencing jinx. He could tell that he wouldn't be getting any coherent information out of this one until he could get a calming potion or at least some chocolate into her, but he wanted to establish himself in her mind as an adult in authority, and not a ghost or apparition.

"Stop gibbering, child, and calm yourself! You are in a great deal of trouble, don't make it worse." The words were stern, but his tone was quiet and no more menacing than the one he used to tell his first years the Slytherin house rules. He hunkered down in front of the girl holding his wand out to examine her. She looked thin and young and dirty, and her nose was bleeding freely. "_Episkey,_" he muttered, and the bleeding stopped. "_Skurgify_!" The blood and most of the dirt, snot and tears disappeared, though fresh tears immediately replaced them.

He groped in the breast pocket of his robes and came up with a foil wrapped chocolate. He rarely partook himself, but kept some bits on hand because it was easier to get chocolate than brew a calming draught, and worked nearly as well for most occasions. He unwrapped the candy and popped in the child's open mouth, holding it closed with his hand while she choked and sputtered and finally chewed and swallowed. He remained crouched in front of her but removed his hand, and after a moment she seemed to quiet, no longer attempting to scream but staring at him with wide, wild brown eyes. "_Finite incantatum_!" he said, removing both the silencing jinx and the impediment hex.

"Now, I'll ask you again. Who are you and what are doing here? Quickly, girl."

"M-m-my nname is Portia Dillahunt! I'm looking for my brother, Marcus. He goes to school here. He's in his fourth year."

Severus knew Dillahunt, a quiet, studious Ravenclaw who made decent grades in potions. "School visits are not allowed, as your brother should know. Where are your parents?"

But this was evidently the wrong question, as the child began to cry again and would not be quieted. Severus considered leaving her here while he roused Dillahunt and Flitwick, but decided against it. Marcus Dillahunt was muggleborn, and Snape could sense no spark of magic in the little girl, though it might not yet have manifested in a child of her age. Still it was rare for a muggle family to produce more than one wizarding child.

This was most likely a muggle, which was why each spell he had cast at her had seemed to increase her terror. Some muggle parents of a witch or wizard all but disowned their magical child, and it was possible that Portia knew little or nothing of the magical world, in which case her fear was understandable. He could not leave her here alone n a dark corridor inhabited by pictures that moved and spoke and suits of armor that sometimes came to life and where Peeves or the other ghosts might wander through and frighten her.

He helped her up, and when she tried again to back away from him, picked her up. She was small and light and after a moment's struggle she seemed to decide that his presence amounted to some form of safety, for she curled into him in a way that might have touched his heart if he had still had a heart capable of being touched. He held his wand in front of him, still lit, in the hand that supported her, and his other hand, of its own accord, crept to her head and began to gently stroke her hair as he carried her, swiftly and surely, through the corridors to the Ravenclaw tower. He would also have to rouse Dumbledore, he supposed, to contact Dillahunt's parents.

He looked down at the reddish brown head on his shoulder, and remembered another little auburn-haired girl of that age, one he had known when he was no older. If any of his students had seen him just then they would have been astonished at the completely foreign look of tenderness that had softened their teacher's stern features.


End file.
